Zen And The Art Of Getting Organized
The Secret isn’t becoming a neat freak or throwing everything away. It’s finding a sense of order that suits your style.
I am dashing out the door, late fro an appointment. But before I can leave, I have to write the handyman a note and tape it to the back door. I rifle through the contents of the kitchen catchall drawer. Even though I buy Scotch tape as regularly as orange juice, there’s none to be found. Or it’s buried under mounds of recipes, house keys, playing cards… well, you get the picture. I do find a notepad. Now for a pencil. I feel a headache coming on. The clutter in that drawer leaves me both over helmed and disgusted, and the put-down starts. “If you were really together, your drawer would be, too,” says a voce of perfectionism that sounds a lot like my father’s, “You can’t get rid of those keys. Who knows when you might need them? “ another voice chimes in; I’d lay nets it’s my mother’s. But I don’t want the terrifiying paralysis my mother suffered when it came to tackling her overflowing desk and her stuffed refrigerator. Nor do I want to be the perfectionist whose pencils likely all point north. I just want to be organized enough to… to what? To feel less stressed? To stop beating myself up? To know I’m in control? I am torturing myself with these questions when I chance upon Organizing From the inside Out, the bestseller by Julie Morgenstern. This is no shallow book of organizing tips, the sort that only highlights my misfires. Morgenstern doesn’t start with tips at all; she begins by asking who you are. At first, this seems like pleasant navel gazing , far preferable to sorting out the mess in the kitchen drawer. But introspection is at the heart of Morgenstern’s approach: “Unless you analyze what your goals are and what’s holding you back, you can’t possibly design a system that will last,” she says. “There’s a huge difference between trying to throw junk out and defining what’s important to you and giving it a home.” In other words, what has to be sorted is not our junk but our idiosyncrasies. Morgenstern’s theory echoes some of the conclusions drawn by Randy Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, who has students the habits of college students who hoard their possessions. People surrounded by clutter, says Frost, typically have difficulty making decisions; they’re often perfectionists, often very creative. For them, possessions represent opportunities or emotional security, needs that make facing those piles seem impossible. This strikes a chord in me, and I’m eager to know more. So I invite Morgenstern to spend a day with me to tackle my chaos, She enters unblinking and follows me through my house with a yellow notepad. We pause in the living room in from of the blanket chest in which my mother kept the family photos in one big heap, a tradition I gamely follow. I swing open a closet door, then the cabinet doors under the bookcases, all stuffed with grocery bags of photographs. “So, what’s your goal with the pictures?” she asks. I tell her I would like tidy photo albums, but I find the process of filling them too tedious. The main thing, I guess, is that I want to be able to find specific pictures of people, special events, and places. Morgenstern smiles. It’s not really albums I want, she says, but clear access to my pictures. Maybe it’s in my genes to keep my pictures in heaps, but they can be smaller organized heaps. We decide to sort the photos by category, then tuck them into plastic file boxes and label the tops. Instantly I feel the whoosh of departing anxiety. I hustle Morgenstern back into the kitchen and reveal THE DRAWER. Again, instead of talking only about the drawer, she asks me about life in my kitchen. What works? What doesn’t? Well, no one ever gets their phone messages,” I say. “Either we can’t find a pencil or we leave the message on the kitchen table and it gets covered by the newspaper,” Apparently I’m already starting to internalize Morgenstern’s philosophy, because even as I describe the pitfalls of my kitchen, I realize it’s not my drawer that’s bugging me it’s the frayed communication between four busy family members. Morgenstern suggests I put a magnetic message centre on the refrigerator, complete with calendar, message board, and pencil holder. What a brilliant idea! Who cares anymore about a messy old drawer? Too often, Morgenstern says, people are trapped by the notion that organizing has to be done a certain way. It doesn’t. What might seem messy to your mother-in-law is fine for you as long as it serves your goals. Do you stack books on the floor next to your bed? Then put a book-case there, not across the room. Does your mail wind up under the dish rack? Pit a basket on the counter next to it. Morgenstern also helps me see how clutter and the anxiety it produces stem from deeper psychological issues, which I have to face before I can really make a dent in all the disorder. Indeed, when I picture myself sitting in a spic-and span office, I realize I’d then have to tackle some daunting projects that rejects that require a lot of time and, in some cases, serious soul-searching. And it’s so much easier to obsess about my sloppy filing system than, say, write that book about my twin sister or get ahead on my next deadline. Besides, who has time for all this straightening and arranging? If only my life were less busy, then I could put my house in order, But I’m only half right, Morgenstern says. I may, indeed, need to invest a big chunk of time at the outset to get it right. But once I’ve got a good set-up, it shouldn’t be a chore to keep it up. And even the initial organizing doesn’t have to happen all at once. I can take a week off from work to start with a bang, or tackle things one at a time and spread to start with a bang, or tackle things one at a time and spread the project out over six months if I prefer. My other fear, of course, is that I will never feel organized enough, no matter how much I systematize. Morgenstern says to ask myself these questions: “Can you find what you need when you need it? Do you like being in your space? Can you concentrate on the task at hand and not on the clutter? If you can answer yes to all of these, you’ve found your ideal point of organization.” I love the subtext here: Being organized is not the same as being neat. So forget the teasing of neat freaks, the hauntings of indecisive mothers and perfectionist fathers. The only question you really need to ask is, Am I functional and comfortable? The answer, T know, will not present itself overnight. Still, I see the glint of my new system. S best of all, they, are born out of my idiosyncrasies. I will never give up flinging old newspapers onto the back porch, but now I have a tidy bundling box to ditch them in. My story files, formerly tossed together like mixed greens, are now divided by research and interviews, the very way I tend to use them. I sit at the kitchen table sipping tea, gazing at my new message board. Every day, I find notes in graphic or verse form from my children a drawing of a wise cracking skateboarder, a plea for more cola, a fanciful explanation for the un mowed lawn. Who knew getting organized could be this creative?
What is holding you back?
From many people, being disorganized serves the psyche in some roundabout way, says Julie Morgenstern, author of Organizing from The Inside Out. It may keep them from having to tackle tough ambitions, for instance, or perhaps it reflects a fear of success. Whatever the reasons behind your mess, you can’t get organized until you figure out what they are. Below are descriptions of five common personality types, the issues that contribute to their sloppy surroundings, and strategies to surmount the problem. Find your match and get cracking.
The Comfort Seeker
For this person, possessions satisfy some deep-seated need for security. Perhaps she’s compensating for a deprived childhood, or maybe her belongings represent a road not taken at some point in her life. At the same time. ever-growing piles can be just as unnerving as the thought of paring them down. Own client of Morgenstern’s a widow, was reluctant to get rid of any items that reminded her of her newfound vocation of fund-raising. Strategy Don’t fight need for stuff, says Morgenstern; just make it more manageable. She persuaded the widow to get a bigger apartment with an extra bedroom for her home office; the other rooms she could fill with mementos of her former life. For another client who was overwhelmed by her beloved arts and crafts supplies, Morgenstern designated one closet just for these items, then catalogued them so the woman would know exactly how to find whatever she needed.
The Dilettante
This is the person with a million projects and no priorities. She’s a gardener and he head of the PTA; she cooks for a hobby, and she’s raising money for the cancer fund. Who’s surprised when the donations get covered in cake better? Strategy Step back, take a deep breath, and make some tough choices. Ask yourself, “What are my long-term goals, and where do these projects fit in?” If you simply can’t reach that kind of decision, select things arbitrarily. Morgenstern had a friend who chooses one interest a year to pursue and lets the rest go.
The Saboteur
She uses disorganization as an endless project that allows her to avoid something else: her unrealized ambitions, say, or an unsatisfying social life. Imagine that you walk into your house one day and find everything in perfect order. How does it make you feel? If you think you’d panic rather than enjoy the calm, try to figure out what it is you’ve been putting off that you would suddenly have to face.
Strategy
Take it slow. Create an oasis of order first it could be something as simple as one drawer and live with it for a while before tackling the whole house. Counseling might be a good idea, too; that way you ca talk about any disturbing feelings htat arise as you space gets under control.
The Perfectionist
You know how this one goes: You’re disorganized because you’re always in search of a foolproof solution. Ironically, these people often end up with the worst disarray because they think if they can’t attain their ideal, it’s not worth doing at all.
Strategy
Identify two or three areas of clutter that bug you the most on a daily basis the mail pile or the mounting newspapers, say and make it a point to stay on top of those. The rest of your house may be a mess, but at least you’ll have reined in the worst offenders.
The Creative Spirit
A former actress, Morgenstern herself once fell into this category. “I was terrified that if I got organized, I would be boring and bored.”
Strategy
Remind yourself that chaos is not the same as creativity. “Once I got organized, I actually had more time for ideas because I wasn’t always looking for stuff,” Morgenstern says. One of her clients, a professional storyteller, was having trouble keeping up with the marketing end of her business. Morgenstern suggested she create a file called “Sharing It With The World,” and suddenly the onerous chore became appealing.
Clutter and the anxiety it produces stem from deeper psychological issues, which have to be faced before you can make a dent in the disorder
REDUCE YOUR POSSESSIONS BY 80 PER CENT. IF YOU HAVEN’T USED SOMETHING IN TWO YEARS, DEEP-SIX IT. ONLY TOUCH A PIECE OF PAPER ONCE.
Clutter expert Julie Morgenstern is wary of such classic organizing tips. They just don’t account for a person’s individual style, she says. In fact, tying to adhere to this cookie-cutter approach can keep you from making any progress at all. Morgenstern’s top ten suggestions for coming clean are designed to help you identify and accommodate your own particular needs. Schedule time to get started You can’t just say you’re going to clean up and then wait to do it when you’re in the mood; you need to be organized about getting organized. Designate an entire weekend, or even take a week off from work, to make the first push. Or spread the task over three weekends; one for planning, one for shopping for containers, one for getting the job done.
Picture the results before you start
If you don’t have a vision of what the finished product will look lie, you’ll dive in with the best of intentions but inevitably lose your way. When attacking the living room, for instance, divide it into activity zones a TV zone, are reading zone, a crafts zone then decide how you want to treat each one before moving a single piece of furniture.
Honor your natural habits
If you dump your bags and coat on the floor inside the door every might, put a rack on a the wall right there, or buy a piece of furniture you can set things on. If you empty your pockets on the dresser, put a container there with a flip-top lid.
Attack visible clutter first
If you spend hours cleaning your drawers first, the room will look the same when you’re done, and you’ll get discouraged. Organizing stuff you use every day (which is more likely to be visible) will give you a sense of accomplishment and the incentive you need to keep going.
Categorize your chaos
Is your closet overflowing in all directions? If so, figure out what types of clutter it holds and come up with an appropriate way to handle each one. For instance, the dress that’s ready for the dry cleaner might belong in a laundry bag, whereas the tees you put on every evening after dinner should be readily accessible on a chair or a wall hook.
Avoid zigzag organizing
While cleaning your desk, you find mug that belongs in the kitchen. You take it there, only to discover the dish cabinet needs reorganizing. You begin to tackle that, but you don’t really have time to finish the job, so you end up with two messes instead of just one: the cabinet and the desk. Instead, discipline yourself to complete whatever you start before moving on.
Wait to shop for containers
Most people shop first. But if you haven’t planned out the hob, you won’t know what containers you need. If you’re organizing the linen closet for example, it’s better to empty the closet first and sort the contents into categories. Then you can say, “It looks like I’ll need medium-size baskets for towels and sheets and larger ones for cleaning supplies.”
Measure before you buy
Draw a picture of the space you’re organizing and label it with the width, depth, and height measurements. Also, take a tape measure with you to the store.
Buy containers that appeal to you aesthetically
That way, You’ll be more motivated to use them. In one of her client’s closets. Morgenstern noticed only one tidy spot: the area where the woman stored her belts. She loved her belt holder made of beautiful wood, so it delighted her to fill it up.
Don’t jump ship
If you abandon your efforts midstream, you’ll never experience the comfort of a system you like. The result is that you won’t keep it up, and you’ll end up back at square one.
